What and how do we know what IS ‘Better’?
or
It’s all in our heads, or is it?
Part 23-D ASCC test results, Now Were Talk’n…
So this is the last data set, but it contains all of the cables I used during testing, as such the playing field is fully populated and these results reflect the electrical environment my audio system is operating within, because none of the other Locations are useable for my audio system so this one got the full meal deal treatment.
Note, this dedicated audio run has been ‘tweaked’, not by super-zoopy wire but with Shunyata and Synergistic Research duplex receptacles, and WA-Q cable chips have been wrapped around the romex cable in 2 places.
Plus I’ve added WA-Q fuse chips to the individual wires (hot, neutral and ground) of the romex cable in the panel for this branch circuit.
Also I’ve added WA-Q cable chips to the 2 main power feed wires, that run from the pole outside, then connect up to the main breakers for the entire service to my house, along with one on the neutral feeder wire as well.
So it has some enhancements, which were kept because they contributed to SQ improvements, they made things ‘
Better’
And so now we get the full panoply of cables that I tested.
I had 8 power cables available to me to test, and they range from;
#1 (
AppCord) The ‘standard appliance cord’ which is ‘good enough’…
#2 (
Marigo) An old Marigo RMX Reference Ultra. An audiophool cable from the 90’s ($$$).
#3 (
G-1) A ‘stock’ Bottlehead power cable, made from their kit.
#4 (
G-1-rfi) A ‘stock’ Bottlehead power cable, with an RFI filter (a ferrite donut on the cable).
#5 (
G-4-g) A ‘hot-rodded’ Bottlehead power cable, made with better materials and gold plated connectors.
#6 (
G-4-r) A ‘hot-rodded’ Bottlehead power cable, made with better materials and rhodium plated connectors. It should also be noted that this cable remains a ‘reference’ cable to judge performance and I also still use it when I am cooking the other cables.
#7 (
A-D) Shunyata Alpha-Digital power cable with many, many, thousands of hours that has been cooked, repeatedly.
#8 (
Python) Shunyata Python power cable with many, many, thousands of hours that has been cooked, repeatedly.
Ref Cable (
Stubby) The same
Ref Cable used in all tests.
As you can see, the cables run the gamut from $1.49 (
AppCord) to multi thousands of $$$$ (
Python) with several low cost cables in the middle.
And I’ll describe the G-1 and G-4 cables in a little more detail, just because.
G-1 cables, both with and w/o the rfi choke (ferrite donut), are stock Bottlehead kits, which is to say, not all copper wire with ‘inexpensive’ connectors at each end. These cables are ≈ 13awg.
The G-4 hot-rodded versions come in 2 flavors, with either gold or rhodium plated connectors. They use the same build design but have also been cryo treated and cooked on my industrial strength Audiodharma Cable Cooker. These cables use UL listed TFFN electricians all copper stranded 16awg ‘hook up’ wire. And since the ‘design’ uses 2 pieces of wire for each conductor, the effective rating is ≈ 13awg. And I opted for the cheap Chinese knockoff connectors, which cost ≈ $25/pair.
Which makes the total cost of materials for the G-4 series of cables I made as roughly $45/cable plus the cryo-treatment (≈$25) and cooking costs (≈ $15) for ≈ $85/cable.
The ‘best’ of my DIY cables, the
G-4-r, is still a reference cable in some regards, and was certainly the standard by which I compared the next cables on this list.
Which then brings us to the Shunyata
Python and Alpha-Digital (
A-D) cables. These are cables of 9awg and 10awg respectively, which were already cryo treated by Shunyata as a normal part of their manufacturing process. And I did cook both of these as well, in fact I wouldn’t have purchased them if I hadn’t.
They just didn’t deliver the same bass impact as my
G-4-r cable in the extreme bottom end, without being cooked.
The
Marigo RMX Reference ‘Ultra’ is an old cable a friend gave me years ago. I haven’t used it in any system for quite a while, mostly because it never seemed to make any difference. But I’m glad I hung on to it, if for no other reason than to use it in these tests.
So there you have the line up.
#4 ExAudioRun+.jpg
And as a quick examination of the data, pay attention to the
AppCord with ≈ 3x the current dump capability.
And that while we don’t see 2500Amp capability we do see all of the cables starting from the G-4 series and moving left as able to dump 1000Amps, which again is 3x more current than the ‘household’ GFCI duplex receptacle.
And observe the trend of the ‘spread’ of the Voltage drop %’s as the cables move from #3 to the left (
G-1 thru to
Stubby) for each of the 3 different current tests (
12a - 15a - 20a).
In the next (and last) part of this sub-series I’ll examine the ‘big picture’, the trends I see, and conclusions that I have made.
Of course I could read much more into the data and perform some math based analysis but that really isn’t important.
Why?
Because current dump capability alone is not the only factor that is relevant nor is it necessarily the most important.
BUT it does have a direct influence upon our playback systems ESPECIALLY when it acts as a major CP in and of itself.
IOW ASCC results are just a convenient means of testing for a related influence in the overall operation of our systems.
But it, in and of itself, isn’t the only aspect to pay attention to.
Indeed the test parameters of the ASCC test itself is based upon being able to dump current for a Short Duration.
And I haven’t forgotten about explaining the need for the ability to dump current for a short duration and why and how this time function (Very Short Duration) aspect of all of this is not just relevant but is directly tied into how our gear actually operates.
JJ
End Part 23-D
Next up Part 24-E My take away of all of this data…
